Chapter Text
Su Su carefully navigated the steps, her hands gripping the stone railing. "One foot in front of the other," she repeated to herself, determined to make it to her destination. Soon, she would return to where she should have been.
As she climbed, memories flooded her mind. She thought back to the time when she first met her husband. It was only a few short years, yet it seemed like a lifetime ago. Her heart clenched painfully when images from days long passed came to the front of her mind.
He had stumbled into her home, wounded and bloody. His horrible state should have made her frightened and guarded aginst him. For all she knew, he could have been a bandit in disguise, out to ransack her meager belongings and sully her innocence. And yet, for some puzzling reason, she had welcomed him instead of driving him away, as any sane person should have done. She foolishly believed that he would not harm her and felt compelled to lend a hand.
She cared for him until he recovered. At the time, she merely joked that he should repay her kindness. Somehow, instead of offering a bag of coins or pieces of jewelry, he offered himself to be her companion. Up until that moment, she did not even fancy him in a romantic way; despite his appealing features. And yet again, she accepted him. Two people could accomplish a lot of things together, she reasoned. He was the better cook anyway.
As their lives became more intertwined, her heart warmed up to him little by little until it became a habit to have him by her side. But then he disappeared without warning.
The first time he left her behind, she thought it would be all right. She had been living alone long before they met, and she managed just fine. But each night, as she lay down on her bed, she found herself missing his warmth and his presence.
The second time he disappeared, she was beyond anxious. One moment, she doubted whether he had another family waiting for him somewhere and had already forgotten her. Another, worrying that he had fallen prey to yet another ambush, and that she would never see him again.
Then one day, he appeared before her once again. She was so overjoyed to have him back. She never bothered to ask him why he had abandoned her for all those years. That night they made love again and again until day broke. She told herself that him being with her was more than enough.
Then she was taken away from her only home and trapped in his desolate manor. She told herself once again that it did not matter if he treated her coldly at times. She was still his wife and was bearing him the fruit of their love. She pushed away her uncertainty of being in a strange and unknown place. She tried to stay strong even when her husband, the only one she could place her trust in, was sent away to the very frontline where battles raged. It seemed he never returned home again.
She bore the hostility of those around her with patience and perseverance. Everything would be better once he came back, she kept reminding herself. It did get better, at first. He was almost as caring and gentle with her as he once was. Then like a house of cards; bit by bit, things began to crumble between them and around them. His disapproval family and that woman had tried so hard to come between them, as they did many times before. Yet until that very moment, she still believed. Her husband knew her. He still cared for her. He would protect her and their unborn child as best as he could.
But then he betrayed the trust they had once shared and turned on her. She became a prisoner in her own home. Those hands that once caressed her face so lovingly, now gorged out her eyes. That was when she knew. Lady Su Jin was right, she did not belong here. She no longer felt the love or warmth being with him, but terror. What was the point staying when she was a mere nuisance in his eternal and grander life?
How did they come to this ending? She had asked herself more than once. Not that it mattered anymore. She was leaving him and everything behind. Her only regret was her son, Ali. She wished she could have him with her. But they would never allow a lowly mortal such as her to raise their prince.
To them, her station was far beneath a palace maid. Having her as his mother would only shame her son’s honor. She would not be a shameful blight on his glorious path. If letting him go would ensure he would have a bright future and good fortune ahead; she was more than willing to sacrifice her happiness as a mother. She would not be able to watch him grow up and become the man that she would be proud to call ‘her son’. And yet, this was definitely the one and only thing she can do for him.
The strong wind blowing from beneath her feet hit her in the face and roused her from her stupor. Su Su realized she had finally made it to her only chance of salvation. Although, she had decided to let go of everything - be it love or bitterness - and settled to never looked back to those miserable years again. She still wished to bid him her final farewell. It was such a befitting closure of their ill-fortunate meeting. He stumbled into her life, she out of his life.
Su Su retrieved the bronze mirror from her sleeve and fiddled with it the way he taught her. Once she was certain a connection was made between him and her. She said her part.
"Ye Hua, you let me go. So, I will let you go as well. From now on, neither one of us owes the other anything."
There, she did it. She hoped he understood what she implied. She set both of them free. She did not wish to hold any animosity toward him. Bitterness was such a tiring emotion. It ate up everything inside her and left her hallowed. She did not want to feel it anymore.
She tossed the mirror to the ground and let herself go into free fall. The wind blew away the white stripe cloth that covered her scarred eyes.
"If I could change the past, I wish we never met. Any destiny we have left, I wish no more. Let this lifetime be the last ……....”
Even before she finished her sentence, the vortex of energy under the Zhuxian Terrace had already seized her in its merciless hold. It whipped at her, slashed open her flesh, and burned her alive. Instead of devouring her soul and destroying her frail mortal body; its powerful onslaught shattered the Ghost Seal Qing Cang had forced upon her two hundred years ago, as a retaliation since she tried to shut him back inside the Bell of the Eastern Emperor.
Her suppressed immortal essence leaked out, as the mortal shell began to crack apart. Thus, the nine-tailed fox queen Qing Qui's Bai Qian returned, with her unraveled essence rippling outward in short, powerful bursts. The revived Fox Queen shifted her head restlessly and tried to shy away from memories of her previous life. Only to be flooded and overwhelmed. There was nowhere to escape. Darkness came, and she knew no more.
A day later. Her family’s old friend and confidante, High God Zhe Yan, found her unconscious and gravely wounded in his Peachtree Woods. With his skillful medical practices, her exterior wounds healed at an accelerated rate. Yet it was the wound inside her heart that still festered. Bai Qian withdrew completely into herself. She refused to say where she had been for the past three hundred years. Not even to her favorite fourth brother, who tried to pry the truth out of her.
Zhe Yan spoke of how everyone at home searched tirelessly for her but always came up empty-handed. Yet the goddess remained steadfast in keeping her silence. She mentioned briefly that it was just a love trial and not worth mentioning. Seeing how utterly broken she looked, Zhe Yan chose to let the matter drop.
Another day passed by, and Bai Qian decided she no longer wish to be haunted by Su Su and Ye Hua’s painful memories. After all, it had already come to an end. She did not need a constant reminder of her own fall from grace.
The Goddess asked Zhe Yan for his special potion, made of the water from the River of Oblivion. Once drunk, it granted that person a privilege of forgetting certain memories. It was high time for her to move on with her life. What would be better than starting from a clean slate?